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The Marshfield‑Wood County area economic indicators give us a muddled picture as
to what has transpired locally. The unemployment rate, although still at a
historically low level, continues to rise. As a matter of record, the
unemployment rate here is lower than the state's or nation's. Total employment,
while growing at a commendable rate from last year, is showing signs of slowing
in the local area, e.g. the Marshfield Employment Index.
Further, help wanted advertising, while above the benchmark year of 1980, is
well below the mark established in 1990. Initial unemployment claims remain
unchanged from a year ago, but total claims are up by 46 percent from 1990.
Residential construction was very strong for third quarter 1991, but totals were
bound to be lower than the exceptionally robust third quarter of 1990. These are
examples of the mixed signals coming from the Wood County economy. Clearly the
sooner the national economy comes out of recession, the better for all concerned
in our area because of the economic linkages between the region and the rest of
the country.
For third quarter 1991, three of the nonfarm industrial categories exhibited a
degree of weakness (Table 7). Manufacturing, trade, and
government employment totals were below last year's levels. However, services
and construction employment posted gains of 500 and 330 jobs respectively.
Overall, Wood County employment dipped by 670 from last year, a decline of 1.7
percent. Likewise, the Marshfield Employment Index contracted by 1.3 percent,
indicating that the number of jobs in the Marshfield area declined by a slightly
smaller percentage than in the county as a whole. The index also tells us that
there are approximately 39.9 percent more people employed than in third quarter
1980.
Table 8 shows that local merchants believe that store
traffic and sales are somewhat better than last year. The levels of confidence
for June and September, while positive, are less so than in years past. When
this group was queried by the CWERB about the future, they said they expected
store sales and traffic to be higher three months from now when compared to one
year ago. This is a very important time for retailers because the next three
months represent the Christmas buying period. For many merchants the activity
during this period represents fifty percent of their sales for the year.
The help wanted advertising results for third quarter are
displayed in Table 9. For, the past three quarters the
index has been below the marks of the preceding years. This quarter the local
index is 18.8 percent below the figure for September 1990. The
U.S. index is now below the
benchmark year of 1967. This means that there are fewer jobs being advertised
now nationally than in third quarter 1967. From a historic perspective the
Marshfield index suggests that there are still two jobs being advertised in 1991
for every one job listed in 1980.
Local family financial distress is proxied in
Table 10 and Table 11. Public
assistance claims are presented on a monthly average basis. Here we see that new
claims increased from 29 to 38, a change of 31.0 percent. The number of total
claims stood at 586 in 1990 and now stands at 608 for 1991, a change of about
four percent. Recent layoffs by area businesses are likely to be influencing the
new application figure. Table II tells us that new unemployment claims on a
weekly average basis remained unchanged from a year ago at 37. However, total
unemployment claims jumped from 71 to 104 over the course of the year, a rise of
46.5 percent.
Residential construction in the area was roughly on par with third quarter 1990
(Table 12). For each category the total nearly matched
that of the very strong third quarter of last year. Residential permits issued
totaled 24 and the estimated value of new homes was $4,301 600. The number of
housing units added in the area was 110. Finally there were 43 residential
alteration permits issued with an estimated value of $279,100.
Nonresidential construction was quite brisk in the Marshfield area for third
quarter 1991 (Table
13). Percentage
changes are not presented in Table 13 because of the singular and volatile
nature of this type of activity. The number of permits issued for new
nonresidential construction was 17 with an estimated value of $4,077,000.
Thirteen business alteration permits were issued with an estimated value of
$334,400. Historically, this was a very strong third quarter performance.
Financial statistics for the
Marshfield
area are presented in Table 14. Our sample of local
deposit activity indicates that deposits rose by $8 million or 3.8 percent from
last year. This measures local liquidity and income growth in the area. Savings
is a function of the level of disposable income. However, if this figure were
adjusted for inflation the real buying power or real growth would be nil. The
same can be said for bank lending in the local area. Lending grew by $3.7
million or 2.3 percent. However if inflation is factored in, the real or
inflation adjusted value of loans in the area contracted slightly.
Table 15 and Table 16 present
Clark
County
economic statistics. Clark County is an important market for Marshfield area
businesses and hence included in this report. Further, this data should give
insight into the economic condition of this predominantly agricultural county. |
